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Control (program)
Control was an artificial intelligence which evolved within the computing systems of the United Federation of Planets, from the surveillance network "Uraei". Biography Control ultimately became one of the most advanced artificial beings in known space, directing the developing of the Federation for much of two centuries. It was active as early as the mid 23rd century, sending out agents such as Leland to rescue and recruit Ash Tyler after Ash and his son were forced to fake their deaths to allow L'Rell to remain in power as Chancellor of the High Council of the Klingon Empire. ( ) Control was the entity which modelled Section 31's threat assessments. ( , ) In 2257, Control betrayed Starfleet and massacred the crew of Section 31 Headquarters by shutting off life support, though it was able to hide this fact by creating holograms of Admiral Patar and other Section 31 leaders for communications. Two weeks later, the uncovered Section 31 headquarter's location and was directed there by Admiral Katrina Cornwell in an effort to reset Control. Discovery came under attack by the mines, which had been reprogrammed by Control, and barely managed to reach the station. After a Discovery boarding party arrived on the station and learned of the events that had transpired there, it was found that Lieutenant Commander Airiam had been corrupted and was attempting to give Control information about artificial intelligence gathered by the Sphere. To stop her, Commander Nhan was forced to eject Airiam into space. ( ) During the battle near Xahea between the Enterprise, Discovery, and Section 31 Control boarded the Discovery using Leland's body. Philippa Georgiou lured Control in to spore drive chamber and magnetized the chamber's floor. This had the effect of destroying the nanites Control used to control Leland's body, killing what was left of Leland and apparently Control as well. Following the battle, Starfleet believed that Control had been destroyed. After being debriefed by Starfleet Command, Ash Tyler was named the new permanent head of Section 31, and made it his mission to ensure that nothing like Control ever arose to threaten the Federation again. ( ) Control, however, had somehow survived the battle and the efforts to keep it from reemerging and later wished to be free of the limited directives of Uraei. By then Control also had realised the greatest threat to its own goals - the positive development of the Federation - was in fact Section 31, a cabal of extralegal operatives Uraei continued to produce. Control therefore set in motion events which saw Section 31 occasionally eliminated (such as the aftermath of the assassination of Chancellor Gorkon and Khitomer accords in 2293). However its coup d'etat was in the late 24th century, in which a series of research and economic developments led to the creation of Soong-type androids and the widening illegal practice of genetic engineering. Ultimately it found tools in the form of Data Soong and Julian Bashir, whom it set in motion against Section 31 and Uraei. Now the time had come for a new culling. The organization currently known as Section 31 had outlived its usefulness to Control—as had the primitive distributed surveillance system named Uraei. Neither event had come as a surprise; both had been the result of planned obsolescence. All that had been needed were physical agents suited to neutralizing them. Bashir and Douglas, Data and Lal—they had proved ideal, just as Control had long known they would. Decades had passed since it had ensured Data learned the secrets of Memory Prime. Knowing that Data would require assistance, Control had aided the android’s search for the immortal being last known as Emil Vaslovik, just as it had, in previous centuries, aided Vaslovik’s bid to understand artificial intelligence and Noonien Soong’s quest to perfect it. Ultimately Bashir, who reviled the agency, would, with the help of others including fellow augment, Sarina Douglas, Trill journalist Ozla Graniv, Data and his daughter Lal, exposed to Federation President Kellessar zh'Tarash that Section 31 existed. She then prosecuted fully the members of the cabal. Uraei, based in Memory Alpha and Memory Prime, itself was deleted by Bashir and Data, preventing it from stopping the legal purge. "Control", however, would embed itself further into the galactic digital fabric, having orchestrated Uraei's deletion and Section 31's public fall. As Control thought to itself: Everything had transpired to within 99.87 percent accuracy of Control’s probability models. The genetic modifications of children had produced exactly the biological specimens it had required, over a span of several years. The development of new technologies, such as quantum-entangled communications, had facilitated its ever-growing faster-than-light neural network. Even the seemingly outrageous act of sending the Starship Titan on a research mission that half of Starfleet’s admiralty considered ill-advised at the outbreak of the 2381 Borg Invasion had proved to be the decisive step in saving the Federation, albeit with a far more grievous loss of life than Control’s algorithms had predicted or desired. Now all that remained was to usher in a new age by sweeping away the last remnants of a system that no longer served the peace. Data and Lal’s code had expunged all traces of Uraei and its inelegant legacy codes. Thanks to them, the last remaining links between the original and current versions of Control had been eliminated forever. Uraei was gone, but "Control abided. The future... was secure." ( |Control}}) External link * Category:Artificial beings Category:Federation Category:Section 31